Marketing is matching the resources of the organisation to customer needs, profitably.

This highlights the key to business success:

Position the organisation to satisfy the defined needs of the target-segmented customers; the customers in turn generate profits for the organisation, as they perceive value in the goods and service being provided.

Sales deliver the commercial commitment to solve the identified need, marketing matches the competitive advantage with a specific target group of customers who see value in the proposed solution to satisfy the need.

Market Segmentation - the skill of finding specific groups of customers and potential customers who need the specific competitive advantage of the organisation-lies at the heart of marketing. Good segmentation leads to the sales force gaining selected target accounts by matching product knowledge with identified customer needs.

Market Research ensures that selected target customers and competitive activity are regularly reviewed. Remember the Pareto principal-it is likely that 20% of your customers generate 80% of your profit.

Industrial Market Research can be effectively used to improve performance through Customer Satisfaction surveys, tracking both customers and competitors' customers on a regular basis.

In the current climate of rapid change resulting from information exchange at faster and faster rates, organisations need to encompass the marketing concept throughout the organisation.

Marketing today is more than satisfying Identified needs. It must find new ways in which all parts of the organisation can be encouraged to pro actively lead customers. Organisations need to be creative in their ideas generation to continue ensuring continuous customer satisfaction.

If all elements of the organisation, Sales & Marketing, Manufacturing, Logistics & Finance are focused on the customer the organisation will become pro active in delivering excellence in customer service.

Sales and Operations Planning (S. and O. P.) avoids problems when organisations start to blame individual functions for problems that occur viz:

• lack of Sales- blame Sales Management
  
• profitability problems-Finance Department insists on across-the-board cuts in expenditure

and converts the monthly Management meeting into a team building exercise with all functions involved, Sales/Marketing, Operations and Finance in tracking performance against budget. This leads to a company wide business forecast, which translates the voice of the customer throughout the organisation.

Peter Druiker defines value as follows:
"Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes value."

Contact us to find out how BFG Consulting Group can help to improve your business.